Thursday, September 07, 2006 1:00 AM

Hand Evaluation – Tactics ( Reading the Green )

PITBULLS:

A golfer reads the green. He notices the contours , the way the grass is growing , whether the green slopes towards the ocean. He notices ball marks , spike marks , & loose impediments. He “reads” the green to help him make his putt and take money from his buddies’ pockets.

The dummy is the “green” in the game of Bridge. You plan your defense in part by reading the green. Kantar divides the dummy ( green ) into 3 categories. He calls it “LSD” since he was from the 60’s. A “dead” dummy where it is flat and no source of tricks or limited entries in the “D” part of his acronym. He has an “L” category where dummies contain a suit ( Length ) can be established as a source of tricks. This is where you should cash or attack entries needed to get to the suit or establish the suit. The last S dummy category stands for singleton where a source of tricks will come from ruffing. With these types of dummys a trump switch is in order.

The auction goes 1NT all pass so you lead the passive club 10 from ♠Axx ♥Qxx ♦10xx ♣1098x. The board hits with ♠Qxx ♥Jxx ♦xxx ♣Qxxx , declarer wins the King. Declarer leads a spade towards the queen and a spade back with partner showing three of them. Reading the green , you notice this a dead dummy as Kantar calls them. Only 5 HCP and declarer has used up maybe his only dummy entry. This dummy screams for passive defense as breaking suits and guessing will just give declarer entries so help his cause. Let him play this hand as you have only 6 HCP and 5 HCP on the board is a total of 11 HCP. Partner is marked with 13-14 HCP all located in front of declarer. Let declarer come to your partners HCP’s instead of you leading thru partners HCP’s. You win the spade and passively return a spade. Declarer goes one down instead of making 3 when you start guessing and attacking suits. You are way too “busy” when the dummy ( green ) indicates you should not be.

The dummy is not the sole possession of declarer. You build hand patterns from the dummy and you plan your defense by “reading the green”. You can count dummys HCP’s to plan your defense. Use information given to you to guide your defense which includes information obtained from reading the dummy.

Defense in Bridge is not done by rote rules. Susan advised a tormentee that it would be a good idea to lead trump when the auction dies in one of a minor. I too, have found that a trump lead works quite often as partner usually holds quite a few of them for not balancing . The dummy quite often has shortness so you prevent declarers tricks from being obtained by ruffing . So Susan played in 1♦ after the auction was passed out. The dummy ( green ) had some shortness so Susan wanted to ruff some of her losers. The Tormentee dutifully led a trump so the contract was now in trouble. The opponents were in twice but never switched or played another trump. Susan made 1♦ instead of -200 , so Susan asked the tormentee why she never led trump again. The tormentee said “ you told me to lead trump , not switch to trump in these contracts” !!! Guessing what to do rather than reading the green is hazardous at best.

The auction coupled with the “green” indicates you plan of attack . The opponents stretched to game on a Drury invitational auction. You lead the ♦K against their 4♥ contract. The “green” hits with ♠xxx ♥Qxxx ♦xx ♣AKxx which is a “D” green in Kantars classification. This dummy along with declarer minimum values based on his bidding screams for passive defense. For some explicable reason after partner signals he likes your lead , you get aggressive and switch to the ♠K from ♠KQx . This gives declarer his contract as she had ♠AJ109 . Where are the tricks going with a “D green” . There is no hurry to set a contract . You can set a contract at trick 12 & 13 rather than right now. Always ask your self are your tricks going away as per your ability to “read the green” .